THE WANDERER, DECEMBER 21, 2006
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Redeeming Clinton
Bill Clinton had a famous preoccupation with his
"legacy." This anxiety seemed laughable after his
multiple disgraces -- his sordid sexual behavior, his
impeachment and near-conviction, his disbarment, his
habitual mendacity, and his final departure from office
with nakedly cynical pardons of his criminal pals, his
own pockets stuffed, as it were, with White House
properties. His crookedness had become a national, no, a
global joke. Such, it appeared, was his "legacy," beyond
any hope of redemption.
He can stop worrying. I have always said, only half
in jest, that every president makes his predecessors seem
better than they really were, and George W. Bush has
added several cubits to Clinton's stature. It is not only
liberals who say this; more and more conservatives are
reaching the conclusion that Bush is much worse than
Clinton by conservative standards, though much of the
credit for Clinton's comparative restraint in expanding
the size and power of government must go to the
Republicans in Congress who, more recently, have so
shamefully cooperated with Bush.
That said, Clinton, for all his faults, was more
cautious than Bush anyway. In fact a good case might be
made that Bush is in most respects the more liberal of
the two men.
The Iraq Study Group has issued its report, further
dimming whatever luster still accrues to this president.
The "bipartisan" commission agreed that the war has been,
to put it gently, a misfortune, "grave and
deteriorating." Yet Bush continues to resist conceding
anything more than minor mistakes in its conduct, as if
it were an inspired idea that has somehow hit a few
snags. He promises to study the ISG's 79 specific
proposals and make adjustments, but his notorious
stubbornness will surely prevent any major course
correction.
With barely two years remaining in what has become
the ordeal of his presidency, the Republicans dread the
prospect of facing the 2008 elections with U.S. troops
still dying in Iraq. And the Democrats, much as they
criticize the war, are not about to rescue them by using
their new congressional majorities to pull the plug on
it. Leaving the Republicans with this albatross might be
a good thing for Clinton -- Hillary Clinton, I mean now,
though it would be even better for her likely rival
Barack Obama, who has flatly opposed the war from the
beginning.
Apart from Bush himself, the most enthusiastic
remaining GOP hawk is Arizona's John McCain, widely
considered the front-runner for the party's 2008
presidential nomination. McCain too still wants victory
in Iraq and is eager to send more troops to salvage it.
The ISG report, which favors a pullback of American
troops, views this as a dubious option; I view it as
nuts.
So by a remarkable irony, Bush, like Bill Clinton,
now faces his own legacy problem. He has bet his
historical reputation on the Iraq war, but only one in
six Americans agrees with him that the United States is
winning. And even that sorry ratio keeps shrinking.
Viva Fidel!
The liberal press greeted the death of Chile's
Augusto Pinochet with headlines that were more like
editorials than disinterested news reports.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Augusto Pinochet, 91, Dictator
Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies." THE WASHINGTON POST:
"A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy." And so on.
Notice that "reactionary" rulers are always
"dictators" and "strongmen," whose crimes are highlighted
in our liberal press; whereas "progressive" rulers --
such as Communists -- are "leaders," whose achievements
are glowingly enumerated. I first caught on to this in
1976, when I was struck by the contrast between the
obituaries of Mao Zedong and Francisco Franco, who died a
few weeks apart. To read them, you'd have thought Franco
was the mass murderer, while Mao's enormous crimes were
barely hinted at in the eulogies of his heroic reign.
So when Fidel Castro finally bids this world
good-night, we can expect to read litanies of praise for
his "leadership," the elimination of illiteracy (never
mind his totalitarian control of what Cubans can read),
socialized medicine (never mind his firing squads,
prisons, murders of people trying to escape), and of
course his personal charm and magnetism. Even now, many
liberals are still Communists at heart.
Benign Reality
Columnist Ruth Marxist -- I mean Marcus -- of the
aforementioned POST has hailed the pregnancy of Mary
Cheney, Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter (who is "married"
to another woman), as a sign of "the benign reality of
gay families today."
It seems that Hillary Clinton got it wrong ten years
ago. It doesn't "take a village" to raise a child; it
takes only a couple of perverts.
Down Memory Lane
Jeffrey Hart, my old colleague at NATIONAL REVIEW,
has written a splendid history of the magazine, THE
MAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MIND (ISI Books). It
deals briefly with my own travails there; and though I'd
take issue with a few of his remarks about the episode
that led to my firing, he is on the whole very generous
to me.
More important, Hart supplies wonderfully vivid and
perceptive portraits of the men who made the magazine, in
its early years, one of the most stimulating political
journals this country has ever seen. Its recent sad
decline has unfortunately obscured the memory of what it
once was, but Hart reminds us of the days when its pages
boasted such gifted and seminal writers as James Burnham,
Willmoore Kendall, Whittaker Chambers, Hugh Kenner, Frank
Meyer, Russell Kirk, and of course the young Bill Buckley
himself. (Even the names I omit here would make an
impressive roster.)
It was my great privilege to know most of these
colorful men personally, yet thanks to Hart I know them
better now. Other readers will see why they deserve to be
remembered; Jim Burnham in particular, Buckley's mentor
and foreign policy sage, was, as Hart rightly says,
"indispensable." This was borne out, alas, after a stroke
forced him to retire. A bit of his wisdom over the past
two decades (he died in 1987) would have saved NATIONAL
REVIEW from shaming itself with puerile enthusiasm for
the two Bushes.
This book is intellectual history that reads like a
novel, delightfully blending ideas and gossip. For me its
chief defect is that, at 394 pages, it's far too short.
But you can enjoy it even if you aren't a former senior
editor of NATIONAL REVIEW.
+ + +
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--- Joseph Sobran
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